An amusing footnote to the Altera-Intel possibility is that Intel may be sidestepping sheepishly into…more »

10 Comments

david manners

July 15, 2014 20:41

The fact that the case was brought and heard in the USA only after Nakamura had left Nichia, and that Nakamura only counter-sued for compensation after Nichia had originally sued Nakamura for infringing LED patents while working at UCSB, made it a complex case, SEPAM, and it would be interesting to know what, if any, precedents it set. Certainly there don’t seem to have been many like it since. You would think employers would have the emotional intelligence to decently reward employees who deliver an outstanding revenue earning opportunity. But they don’t. I remember when GEC gave anyone who filed a patent two shillings when a coffee in the canteen at Hirst Research Centre cost two shillings and sixpence.

SecretEuroPatentAgentMan

July 15, 2014 20:04

This story generated a lot of activity in the IPR world. I got a lot of inquries from all over the world regarding local laws regulating employee inventor compensation (normally regulated by an Employee Inventor Act).

Interesting in not a good way, in the UK and US it is quite easy to steamroll an inventor, and inventors getting 180 dollars would frequently be considered an undue burden on executive bonuses. I find it a bit odd that the US has this system when US was to some extent settled by those wishing to escape European traditions of varying medieval-ness.

In much of Europe there are employee inventor acts that requried inventors to be compensated for assigning inventions to their employers. This is also the case in Japan since they got much of their Patent Acts from Germany.

The fact that the case was brought and heard in the USA only after Nakamura had left Nichia, and that Nakamura only counter-sued for compensation after Nichia had originally sued Nakamura for infringing LED patents while working at UCSB, made it a complex case, SEPAM, and it would be interesting to know what, if any, precedents it set. Certainly there don't seem to have been many like it since. You would think employers would have the emotional intelligence to decently reward employees who deliver an outstanding revenue earning opportunity. But they don't. I remember when GEC gave anyone who filed a patent two shillings when a coffee in the canteen at Hirst Research Centre cost two shillings and sixpence.

This story generated a lot of activity in the IPR world. I got a lot of inquries from all over the world regarding local laws regulating employee inventor compensation (normally regulated by an Employee Inventor Act).
Interesting in not a good way, in the UK and US it is quite easy to steamroll an inventor, and inventors getting 180 dollars would frequently be considered an undue burden on executive bonuses. I find it a bit odd that the US has this system when US was to some extent settled by those wishing to escape European traditions of varying medieval-ness.
In much of Europe there are employee inventor acts that requried inventors to be compensated for assigning inventions to their employers. This is also the case in Japan since they got much of their Patent Acts from Germany.